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On Friday, the university will break ground on a permanent Portland campus — one of 13 in Northeastern’s global university system — that will be home to the Roux Institute and the new Alfond Center.
When Northeastern University launched the Roux Institute in January 2020 — with a $100 million investment from Maine technology entrepreneur David Roux and his wife, Barbara — the goal was to ignite the Rouxs’ vision of a Portland-based research hub that would educate generations of local talent for the digital, artificial intelligence and life sciences sectors, and drive sustained economic growth in northern New England.
On Friday, Sept. 13, the university will break ground on a permanent Portland campus — one of 13 in Northeastern’s global university system — that will be home to the Roux Institute and the new Alfond Center. (Northeastern currently leases space on Fore Street.)
The Harold Alfond Foundation, which also invested $100 million in 2020 to support graduate students, research and co-ops with Maine employers, is making an additional investment in the permanent campus, along with a new commitment from David and Barbara Roux.
The new campus will transform the former industrial site of B&M Baked Beans into a state-of-the-art, multi-building complex that will serve as a hub for education and research about AI and other high-tech, high-growth fields.
Starting at 9 a.m., the Friday event will convene Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun, David and Barbara Roux, representatives from the Alfond Foundation and elected officials in celebrating this milestone moment on the Portland waterfront.
The new campus will include a variety of buildings to be developed in phases:
-The Alfond Center, a new 245,000-square-foot learning, research and collaboration building that will house wet labs, computational labs, research spaces and classrooms.
-The 58,000-square-foot “Bean” building will undergo major rehabilitation and support innovation and entrepreneurship, providing workspaces for startups and businesses.
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The $500 million project is expected to be completed in 2027.
When the new campus opens, enrollment on Northeastern’s Portland campus is expected to grow to 1,800 students in 2028, 2,300 in 2029 and 3,500 within five years.
Over 800 graduate students are currently enrolled on the Portland campus — 42% women, more than double the national average for STEM fields.
The campus will also allow for the growth of residency and accelerator programs focused on AI, health care, early-stage entrepreneurship, and historically underrepresented people. To date, 72 startups in residency and accelerator programs in Portland have raised $73 million in capital and created over 400 new jobs.
The new campus will include a new parking garage, an adjacent child care center, public green spaces, and pedestrian and bicycle paths on the shores of Casco Bay, which will be made accessible to the public for the first time in more than a century.
Beginning in 2011, Northeastern has been building a system of campuses designed to meet the talent and research needs of regional economies across North America and the United Kingdom.
Northeastern has approximately 22,000 undergraduate students across three of its campuses: Boston, London and Oakland. Another 20,000 students are enrolled in professional graduate programs — ranging from master’s degrees to doctoral and certificate programs.
Northeastern campuses that prioritize graduate and professional master’s programs include Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Miami,Silicon Valley and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as Arlington, Virginia, and Portland.
Campuses in Burlington and Nahant, Massachusetts — home to Northeastern’s Marine Science Center — focus on research.
In May, Northeastern and Marymount Manhattan College, a private liberal arts college on the Upper East Side of New York City, announced their intention to merge.